Season's loaded with heavyweights

FALL'S BIG BOOKS

September 12, 1991|By Tim Warren | Tim Warren,Sun Book Critic

Norman Mailer is back, with what his publisher assures us is "his great American novel" -- weighing in at more than 1,000 pages. Harold Brodkey, surely the slowest-working man in the literary business, finally has blessed us with his novel; it's 800 pages long and was 30 years in the making. Stephen King gives us what is advertised as his final book set in Castle Rock, Maine, and his arrivederci to the tortured town stretches to 704 pages.

Then there's Alexandra Ripley's much-heralded sequel to "Gone With the Wind," which will add another 768 pages to the 1,000-plus already contributed in the 1936 original by Margaret Mitchell.

If you're looking for something to help pass the time as the leaves change, the fall book season could help. There are enough "big" books -- physically and literarily -- to keep a reader occupied for some time.

(Already on the best-seller list are "The Sum of All Fears," the sixth novel by Baltimore-born Tom Clancy that quickly shot to No. 1, and "Saint Maybe," Anne Tyler's 12th novel and 10th set in this city. It's her first since "Breathing Lessons," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.)

Big sellers in non-fiction should come from Bill Cosby, Robert Fulghum, Shirley MacLaine, Joe McGinniss, Katharine Hepburn and William Least Heat-Moon. Biography buffs should enjoy the concluding volumes on studies of Richard Nixon and Vladimir Nabokov.

We'll hear even more from the Sage of Baltimore in "The Impossible H. L. Mencken" (Doubleday, November), a collection of newspaper pieces, many of which appeared in The Evening Sun and The Sun. It's edited by Marion Rodgers, author of "Mencken and Sara."

Fiction

Mr. Mailer's "Harlot's Ghost" (Random House, October) is a massive book about the CIA set in the 1950s and 1960s. Will it be as compelling as, say, "The Naked and the Dead" and "The Executioner's Song," or will it get the rough critical treatment accorded his recent "Tough Guys Don't Dance"? (An advance review in Publishers Weekly was a rave). Or will America not care and merely nod off? At any rate, we'll be hearing huge amounts of hype.

Likewise, Mr. Brodkey's "Runaway Soul" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) will get close scrutiny when it comes out in November. As little known to the public as Mr. Mailer is familiar, Mr. Brodkey is something of a legend in literary circles, even though to date he has written but two short story collections in more than 30 years. Rumors of sightings of "Runaway Soul" have been surfacing for 15 years, and the myth has continued to grow: It is a work of unparalleled genius, nothing like what anyone else has seen. Or, goes the whispering, it is yet another grossly overpraised work by a prima donna.

Other books to look out for include Russell Banks' "The Sweet Hereafter" (HarperCollins, September); "Brotherly Love" (Random House, October), by Mr. Dexter, who won the National Book Award for "Paris Trout"; Carlos Fuentes' "The Campaign" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, October), Mr. Keillor's "WLT: a Radio Romance" (Viking, November); "He, She and It," by Marge Piercy (Knopf, October); and "Wilderness Trips," a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood ("The Handmaid's Tale"). It's due in December from Doubleday.

In the mystery/thriller category, we can expect to see Carl Hiaasen's "A Native Tongue" (Knopf, September); "The Mandeville Talent," by George V. Higgins (Henry Holt, September); Mr. Sheldon's "The Doomsday Connection" (Morrow, September); Mr. Condon's "The Final Addiction" (St. Martin's, September); Ed McBain's "Downtown" and Mr. Follett's Night Over Water," both out in September from Morrow; Mr. Forsyth's "The Deceiver" (Bantam, October); and "Comeback," by Mr. Francis (Putnam, October).

Then there are the page-turners. Critics hate 'em (usually) but readers can't get enough of the "popular" writers who overweight the best-seller lists. Most of the attention, of course, will be focused on Ms. Ripley's "Scarlett," to be published Sept. 25 by Warner and pushed into our consciousness by a $600,000 advertising campaign. One might wonder why anyone would attempt a sequel to such a treasured book as "Gone With the Wind," but likely reasons include money (her advance was given as several million) and an invaluable boost in career to someone who has had a respectable, but no means extraordinary, career as a historical novelist.